Complete Prose Works
foundations and hold-together? (As the all-basis, the nerve, the
great-sympathetic, the plenum within humanity, giving stamp to
everything, is necessarily invisible.)
_Aug. 4, 6 P.M._--Lights and shades and rare effects on tree-foliage and
grass--transparent greens, grays, &c., all in sunset pomp and dazzle.
The clear beams are now thrown in many new places, on the quilted,
seam'd, bronze-drab, lower tree-trunks, shadow'd except at this
hour--now flooding their young and old columnar ruggedness with strong
light, unfolding to my sense new amazing features of silent, shaggy
charm, the solid bark, the expression of harmless impassiveness, with
many a bulge and gnarl unreck'd before. In the revealings of such light,
such exceptional hour, such mood, one does not wonder at the old story
fables, (indeed, why fables?) of people falling into love-sickness with
trees, seiz'd extatic with the mystic realism of the resistless silent
strength in them--_strength_, which after all is perhaps the last,
completest, highest beauty.
_Trees I am familiar with here_.
Oaks, (many kinds--one sturdy Willows.
old fellow, vital, green, bushy, Catalpas.
five feet thick at the butt, I sit Persimmons.
under every day,) Mountain-ash.
Cedars plenty. Hickories.
Tulip trees, (_Liriodendron,_) is of Maples, many kinds.
the magnolia family--I have Locusts.
seen it in Michigan and southern Birches.
Illinois, 140 feet high and Dogwood.
8 feet thick at the butt [A]; does Pine.
not transplant well; best rais'd the Elm.
from seeds--(the lumbermen Chesnut.
call it yellow poplar.) Linden.
Sycamores. Aspen.
Gum trees, both sweet and sour. Spruce.
Beeches. Hornbeam.
Black-walnuts. Laurel.
Sassafras. Holly.
AUTUMN SIDE-BITS
_Sept. 20_.--Under an old black oak, glossy and green, exhaling
aroma--amid a grove the Albic druids might have chosen--envelop'd in
the warmth and light of the noonday sun, and swarms[10] of flitting
insects--with the harsh cawing of many crows a hundred rods away--here
I sit in solitude, absorbing, enjoying all. The corn, stack'd in its
cone-shaped stacks, russet-color'd and sere--a large field spotted thick
with scarlet-gold pumpkins--an adjoining one of cabbages, showing
well in their green and pearl, mottled by much light and shade--melon
patches, with their bulging ovals, and great silver-streak'd, ruffled,
broad-edged leaves--and many an autumn sight and sound beside--the
distant scream of a flock of guinea-hens--and pour'd over all the
September breeze, with pensive cadence through the tree tops.
_Another Day_.--The ground in all directions strew'd with _débris_ from
a storm. Timber creek, as I slowly pace its banks, has ebb'd low, and
shows reaction from the turbulent swell of the late equinoctial. As I
look around, I take account of stock--weeds and shrubs, knolls, paths,
occasional stumps, some with smooth'd tops, (several I use as seats
of rest, from place to place, and from one I am now jotting these
lines,)--frequent wild-flowers, little white, star-shaped things, or the
cardinal red of the lobelia, or the cherry-ball seeds of the perennial
rose, or the many-threaded vines winding up and around trunks of trees.
_Oct. 1, 2 and 3_.--Down every day in the solitude of the creek. A
serene autumn sun and westerly breeze to-day (3d) as I sit here, the
water surface prettily moving in wind-ripples before me. On a stout old
beech at the edge, decayed and slanting, almost fallen to the stream,
yet with life and leaves in its mossy limbs, a gray squirrel, exploring,
runs up and down, flirts his tail, leaps to the ground, sits on his
haunches upright as he sees me, (a Darwinian hint?) and then races up
the tree again.
_Oct. 4_.--Cloudy and coolish; signs of incipient winter. Yet pleasant
here, the leaves thick-falling, the ground brown with them already; rich
coloring, yellows of all hues, pale and dark-green, shades from lightest
to richest red--all set in and toned down by the prevailing brown of
the earth and gray of the sky. So, winter is coming; and I yet in my
sickness. I sit here amid all these fair sights and vital influences,
and abandon myself to that thought, with its wandering trains of
speculation.
Note:
[10] There is a tulip poplar within sight of Woodstown, which is twenty
feet around, three feet from the ground, four feet across about eighteen
feet up the trunk, which is broken off about three or four feet higher
up. On the south side an arm has shot out from which rise two stems,
each to about ninety-one or ninety-two feet from the ground. Twenty-five
(or more) years since the cavity in the butt was large enough for,
and nine men at one time, ate dinner therein. It is supposed twelve to
fifteen men could now, at one time, stand within its trunk. The severe
winds of 1877 and 1878 did not seem to damage it, and the two stems send
out yearly many blossoms, scenting the air immediately about it with
their sweet perfume. It is entirely unprotected by other trees, on a
hill.--_Woodstown, N. J., "Register," April 15, '79_.
THE SKY--DAYS AND NIGHTS--HAPPINESS
_Oct. 20_.--A clear, crispy day--dry and breezy air, full of oxygen.
Out of the sane, silent, beauteous miracles that envelope and fuse
me--trees, water, grass, sunlight, and early frost--the one I am looking
at most to-day is the sky. It has that delicate, transparent blue,
peculiar to autumn, and the only clouds are little or larger white
ones, giving their still and spiritual motion to the great concave. All
through the earlier day (say from 7 to 11) it keeps a pure, yet vivid
blue. But as noon approaches the color gets lighter, quite gray for two
or three hours--then still paler for a spell, till sun-down--which last
I watch dazzling through the interstices of a knoll of big trees--darts
of fire and a gorgeous show of light-yellow, liver-color and red, with a
vast silver glaze askant on the water--the transparent shadows, shafts,
sparkle, and vivid colors beyond all the paintings ever made.
I don't know what or how, but it seems to me mostly owing to these
skies, (every now and then I think, while I have of course seen them
every day of my life, I never really saw the skies before,) have had
this autumn some wondrously contented hours--may I not say perfectly
happy ones? As I have read, Byron just before his death told a friend
that he had known but three happy hours during his whole existence. Then
there is the old German legend of the king's bell, to the same point.
While I was out there by the wood, that beautiful sunset through the
trees, I thought of Byron's and the bell story, and the notion started
in me that I was having a happy hour. (Though perhaps my best moments
I never jot down; when they come I cannot afford to break the charm by
inditing memoranda. I just abandon myself to the mood, and let it float
on, carrying me in its placid extasy.)
What is happiness, anyhow? Is this one of its hours, or the like
of it?--so impalpable--a mere breath, an evanescent tinge? I am not
sure--so let me give myself the benefit of the doubt. Hast Thou,
pellucid, in Thy azure depths, medicine for case like mine? (Ah, the
physical shatter and troubled spirit of me the last three years.) And
dost Thou subtly mystically now drip it through the air invisibly upon
me?
_Night of Oct. 28._--The heavens unusually transparent--the stars out by
myriads--the great path of the Milky Way, with its branch, only seen
of very clear nights--Jupiter, setting in the west, looks like a huge
hap-hazard splash, and has a little star for companion.
Clothed in his white garments,
Into the round and clear arena slowly entered the brahmin,
Holding a little child by the hand,
Like the moon with the planet Jupiter in a cloudless night-sky.
_Old Hindu Poem._
_Early in November._--At its farther end the lane already described
opens into a broad grassy upland field of over twenty acres, slightly
sloping to the south. Here I am accustom'd to walk for sky views and
effects, either morning or sundown. To-day from this field my soul is
calm'd and expanded beyond description, the whole forenoon by the clear
blue arching over all, cloudless, nothing particular, only sky and
daylight. Their soothing accompaniments, autumn leaves, the cool dry
air, the faint aroma--crows cawing in the distance--two great buzzards
wheeling gracefully and slowly far up there--the occasional murmur of
the wind, sometimes quite gently, then threatening through the trees--a
gang of farm-laborers loading cornstalks in a field in sight, and the
patient horses waiting.
COLORS--A CONTRAST
Such a play of colors and lights, different seasons, different hours of
the day--the lines of the far horizon where the faint-tinged edge of the
landscape loses itself in the sky. As I slowly hobble up the lane toward
day-close, an incomparable sunset shooting in molten sapphire and gold,
shaft after shaft, through the ranks of the long-leaved corn, between me
and the west. _Another day_--The rich dark green of the tulip-trees and
the oaks, the gray of the swamp-willows, the dull hues of the sycamores
and black-walnuts, the emerald of the cedars (after rain,) and the light
yellow of the beeches.
NOVEMBER 8, '76
The forenoon leaden and cloudy, not cold or wet, but indicating both.
As I hobble down here and sit by the silent pond, how different from the
excitement amid which, in the cities, millions of people are now waiting
news of yesterday's Presidential election, or receiving and discussing
the result--in this secluded place uncared-for, unknown.
CROWS AND CROWS
_Nov. 14_.--As I sit here by the creek, resting after my walk, a warm
languor bathes me from the sun. No sound but a cawing of crows, and no
motion but their black flying figures from over-head, reflected in the
mirror of the pond below. Indeed a principal feature of the scene to-day
is these crows, their incessant cawing, far or near, and their countless
flocks and processions moving from place to place, and at times almost
darkening the air with their myriads. As I sit a moment writing this
by the bank, I see the black, clear-cut reflection of them far below,
flying through the watery looking-glass, by ones, twos, or long
strings. All last night I heard the noises from their great roost in a
neighboring wood.
A WINTER DAY ON THE SEA-BEACH
One bright December mid-day lately I spent down on the New Jersey
sea-shore, reaching it by a little more than an hour's railroad trip
over the old Camden and Atlantic. I had started betimes, fortified by
nice strong coffee and a good breakfast (cook'd by the hands I love, my
dear sister Lou's--how much better it makes the victuals taste, and
then assimilate, strengthen you, perhaps make the whole day comfortable
afterwards.) Five or six miles at the last, our track enter'd a broad
region of salt grass meadows, intersected by lagoons, and cut up
everywhere by watery runs. The sedgy perfume, delightful to my nostrils,
reminded me of "the mash" and south bay of my native island. I could
have journey'd contentedly till night through these flat and odorous
sea-prairies. From half-past 11 till 2 I was nearly all the time along
the beach, or in sight of the ocean, listening to its hoarse murmur, and